


life's undress rehearsal

by storypaint (possibilityleft)



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-26
Updated: 2011-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-24 23:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/storypaint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puck has a new roommate who doesn't like Puck's taste in TV or music or clothes. Also, he's been dead for thirty years. <em>Noah Puckerman did not believe in ghosts. He believed in beer, in cougars, and in inheritance money.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	life's undress rehearsal

**Author's Note:**

> Pairings: Puck and Kurt gen with background Finn/Rachel and minor Puck/Quinn  
> Warnings: Homophobic language/attitudes, gay-bashing, and some implied violence. PG-13.  
> Author's Notes: This is an AU as per the prompt. A note on Jewish exorcisms: They do exist, but you don't exorcise a house, you exorcise a person. So yes, the guy in this story is pretty much just messing around. No offense is intended. It just seemed like Puck to specifically try to get a Jewish one.  
> I also want to give a warm thank-you to the people who encouraged me as I wrote this, praised the little snippets I posted, and generally helped me find the motivation to finish. You guys know who you are. And you're awesome.

Noah Puckerman did not believe in ghosts. He believed in beer, in cougars, and in inheritance money. Sure, Nana Puckerman had said her house was haunted. She also said in her will that he'd get all of her money if he lived there for a year, and he was not going to give up that opportunity; he guessed she was trying to make up for her loser son. Her executor was an old turtle-like man who blinked at Puck and told him he should take the ghost seriously. The old man was a friend of his grandmother's and said that he'd seen the ghost about ten years ago.

"Just a huge black shadow," he said solemnly. "I thought my heart would stop."

Well, the man looked ancient. Maybe that's what turned all his hair white, but Puck doubted it. He nodded to get the man to shut up and spent a warm fall Sunday moving in.

He hadn't had much in the crappy little apartment he and Finn had taken after high school. Finn took the decent furniture with him when he got married, so Puck mostly used milk crates and planks of wood. Milk crates were surprisingly adaptable, and you could carry your stuff in them, which is what Puck did. He planned to use his grandma's old furniture. No reason to waste it.

His grandma's bedroom still smelled like old lady. He wondered if there was some way to get the smell out. Probably young people bought old people's houses, and he didn't know any young people with stinky houses (his apartment didn't count). He'd have to ask his mom. But until then, he decided to bunk down in the spare room, which was almost as large and looked like it hadn't been used in a long time. There was dust on the heavy wooden furniture, and even a duvet on the bed, but he replaced it with his favorite Iron Man sheets. (Maybe he wasn't a kid anymore, but he felt a connection to Tony Stark and his love for the ladies and ballistic weaponry.)

After that, he unpacked his crates and shoved his clothes into the bureau. He had some pictures and miscellaneous stuff that he sort of arranged in the empty bookcase. He'd be here for a year at least, so he might as well enjoy it. And maybe he'd end up liking it enough to stay. Anyway, tripping over junk while fumbling for the bathroom sucked, he knew from experience, so he wasn't going to do it. The whole process took maybe three hours and afterward Puck decided to order pizza. There was a dining room and a kitchen, but he sat on the uncomfortable couch in the living room and promised himself to get the cable set up tomorrow. That was just like his nana, living without any real home comforts. Then again, she had been deaf for like the last six years of her life, so maybe she didn't think there was a point. Still, it was too damn quiet in here. He wasn't scared, because he was a badass, but he could see how less-badass people could feel a creepy vibe.

Whatever. Even if the cable didn't work, he could still play his video games. He hooked them up and lost himself in four hours straight of zombie-killing. No better way to break in a new place, in his opinion. He and Finn had played Halo until dawn on their move-in day. It had been awesome.

"Time for bed, you," someone whispered, voice teasing and feminine. Puck started. He was sitting in the dark on the hard couch, listing to one side uncomfortably. The game was a bright glow on his face, but playing the welcome screen again. He must have dozed off and the game had restarted.

There was no one around to whisper, so it must have come from his dream. Puck yawned and headed up the stairs to bed. He could do the other moving-in stuff tomorrow.

*

There weren't any creepy voices when he woke up, not that there had been in the first place, of course. He didn't have any groceries yet, so he ate the last couple of pieces of pizza cold. He needed a microwave too. Shit, at this rate he wouldn't have any inheritance left, and he wanted to buy a sweet car when he got it. He had to be patient. He knew this would take a while.

He had had some odd dreams, which he thought featured glitter, oddly enough, but he'd long forgotten them by the time that he headed out the door to do the other things that moving in required: changing the name on the bills, talking to the cable guy, stuff like that. He thought that maybe he'd get to know the city a little too. At least there'd be more clubs here than in Lima. He looked forward to getting to know the city's ladies. It would be a bit of a challenge, without his awesome reputation to precede him, but he was up for it.

By the time he got back, he decided to go with the pizza option again, but after that the evening was open. The cable guy was coming out on Tuesday so he had one more night to kill with whatever. He dragged out his old guitar and strummed a few notes. It needed tuning, but had survived the move without issue.

Puck sang sometimes. He hadn't been gay enough for Glee Club or anything -- it had been football all the way -- but there if there was a surefire way to get into a girl's pants, it was by singing them off. And he had a pretty good voice, so it worked well. Half the chicks he'd dated had given it up after he sang "their" song. It was like magic.

Suddenly, it was quiet. The house had its sounds, like any house: the water in the pipes, the scrape of the heat coming on. But he'd never had a house that... listened before. It was like all the little noises were silenced, and his voice and his guitar were what remained. It was almost creepy. There were really banging acoustics in the living room (he made a mental note to buy some speakers too), so maybe that was why.

He'd only sung a couple of songs before the sounds began to filter in again, and it sounded like the washing machine was having fits. He'd only put in his crate of dirty clothes, so he wasn't sure what the problem was. He set the guitar down and went to look, but everything looked fine when he got to the laundry room -- the washer wasn't shaking or overflowing or anything. As he watched suspiciously, it clicked over to the rinse cycle.

"Don't be a bitch, man," he said to it. It was kinda stupid -- it wasn't like the washing machine was screwing up on purpose, but somehow it still looked sulky to him. He had no idea why. He squinted at it and went back to the couch and his guitar, but he wasn't really feeling it anymore. After a while he set it aside and went back to Halo.

Honestly, though, who wouldn't appreciate a nice cover of "I Wanna Sex You Up?" Who didn't like that song? No one Puck was friends with, that was sure.

*

He drifted off around midnight. When he woke up, he couldn't open his eyes. His body felt heavy and wrong, like it didn't belong to him. He could just barely hear people speaking.

 _Rock stars die young. The booze, the drugs, the..._ alternative _lifestyle certainly didn't help. It's a wonder he made it that long. I'm not surprised._

 _Had a couple of good songs, though._

He had no idea what they were talking about, but the words provoked a great deal of stubborn rage. He wanted to punch something -- he wanted to punch anyone, whoever was closest. What did they know? Why weren't they looking closer? This wasn't his fault. It _wasn't_.

When he woke up for real, his hand were fisted so tightly that he'd left fingernail marks in his palms. His jaw hurt like he'd been clenching it. He leaned up on his elbow and stared at the clock, but it was only one in the morning. It had been late morning in the dream; somehow he'd gotten that impression.

"Weird," he mumbled, turning over and going back to sleep.

*

On the third day Puck got cable, and he saw that it was good. It was good for exactly two hours before it started flipping out randomly. He was pissed. It had taken him twenty minutes on the phone just to talk to the cable people yesterday, and the only reason he'd gotten his cable installed so quickly was that they had a last minute cancellation and could fit him in. Even if he called them again, who knew when they'd be able to come back? And it was only Tuesday, so it wasn't like there'd be anybody at the clubs to meet, and Finn was busy being married (aka, getting laid a lot, or at least Puck hoped, because that would be the only way to make it worth it). Most of his other friends from high school had moved away, and his favorite booty call wasn't picking up the phone. She'd probably decided to be a lesbian again. Those urges were always at bad times for Puck, especially since she wouldn't share her "not my girlfriend."

Annoyed, he decided that maybe it was time to get some food in the house that wasn't two-day-old pizza (especially since he was almost finished with it). When he came back, laden down with grocery bags of frozen meals and a six pack of beer, the TV had resolved to normal clarity. Somehow it had reverted to some chick channel and Tyra Banks was going on and on about the dangers of off-brand nail polish or something, but that didn't matter. He grabbed the remote control and flipped it to the sports channel, turning the volume up so he could hear the game in the kitchen as he put the groceries away. Which game it was didn't matter as much as drowning out the sounds of the annoyed house; the washing machine was being weird again. He slammed the fridge door shut.

"Sorry, man," he said cheerfully, "but Tyra isn't even good for sex dreams. Not after Rachel made me watch her show every day for a week." He'd thought _Rachel_ talked too much, geez. And Tyra did this creepy thing where she made even her eyes smile.

It was stupid to be talking to appliances, he knew, but it was even more annoying when the announcer cut off mid-call and a female voice started talking about concealer. He'd thrown the remote down on the couch after changing the channel, so he knew he hadn't pressed any buttons himself. Maybe it had cut to commercial abruptly, but somehow Puck doubted it. He opened a beer and went back into the living room. The picture fuzzed, much like it had been doing when he left, and Puck scowled.

"You can quit dicking around any time now. Don't make me find an exorcist," he said, in tones meant to inspire dread in any listeners. "I'm serious. And if I do and you throw up all over the place, I will find a way to strangle a ghost. I don't want to clean that shit up."

The house was quiet. In the bathroom, the faucet plinked water droplets once, twice. The washing machine was silent -- which made sense, since he didn't remember turning it on before he left, now that he thought about it.

"That's right," he said, satisfied, right before the remote control flew at his head.

*

Okay, so Puck had a ghost. A bitchy ghost who didn't like his guitar or sports. A lady ghost, maybe? Puck wondered if there was a porno about that. He was going to do research on poltergeists, which was a word he'd learned from some cheesy 80s movie he'd seen once, but then he got distracted googling "ghost porn." Goddamn, the internet had _everything_.

Most of the porn seemed to involve male ghosts taking advantage of unsuspecting underwear models, though, and he thought that doing a girl who'd been dead for years might border on necrophilia, and his mom wouldn't approve, even if she was a Jewish ghost. So he set the idea aside for a while and did some more reading. The weird electronic activity and moving objects seemed to fit the profile exactly. Most poltergeist cases seemed to involve teenage girls; obviously he shouldn't have been surprised that there was ghost porn.

It looked like he had two main options to start. He could try to communicate with the ghost, or he could have it exorcised and see if that worked. There weren't any exorcists in the phone book, so he decided to go with the first one. He called Finn and told him to bring over a six-pack and the Ouija board in his closet.

"I can't believe you remembered I had this old thing," Finn said, still as gawky and awkwardly tall as he had been in high school. When Puck had answered the door, Finn had nearly cracked his forehead on the frame. Old houses were built smaller, after all. Puck had snickered, but only for a minute. After all, Finn had listened to his story and hadn't told him he was crazy. He'd taken Puck perfectly at his word and told him some rambling story about a ghost he'd supposedly saw on vacation with Rachel once. It had just been a weird ball of light, though, and Puck's ghost was actually affecting his life, so Finn was considering it very seriously.

Puck was really more positive about the beer, if he was honest, but it was also nice to have some bachelor times with his bro. They cleared a space on the floor and turned off most of the lights, just leaving Puck's camping lantern in lieu of candles. Finn's face was blue in the glow. He was giggling a little with nervousness.

"Okay," Puck said. He took a deep breath and put his fingers on the little white thing. Planchette, whatever. It didn't take long for things to start happening. The planchette wavered across the board as Finn drew in a breath and bit his lip.

"Ask it something," he hissed at Puck. "We don't want another spirit to sneak in and possess someone!"

Puck rolled his eyes, but he did want to get this stupid ghost out of the house. Or at least into the kitchen making him sandwiches or something. She wasn't allowed to interfere with his hobbies.

"Why are you here?" he asked aloud.

 _Lived here_ , the board answered. Finn squeaked but didn't remove his fingers from the planchette. His eyes were wide.

"Oh my god oh my god," he breathed. "You _do_ have a ghost."

"You think I was screwing with you? Of course I do. Shut up." He stared at the board, thinking of another question. He probably should have prepared them in advance, but he liked to improvise his way through life.

"What happened to you?" he asked finally.

 _Drown_ , the board spelled, the last couple of letters shaky. Before Puck could ask another question, however, its resolve seemed to solidify. It began to spell quickly and firmly, and they struggled to follow along.

"Ish... e? Is he? Is he... mar -- " Puck tried to read. Then he laughed. Finn took his hand off the planchette as if it had suddenly gotten hot. His face was red.

"My ghost wants to know if you're married, Finn! She thinks you're cute!" Puck shook his head. "Figures. She doesn't approve of my badassery -- she wants someone more wholesome."

"I, uh," Finn said, talking slowly and loudly into the air as if he expected the ghost to have trouble hearing him, "I am married. So please don't come home with me." His voice was rushed and worried. "I don't think Rachel wants competition. She'd probably have you exorcised or something."

A cool breeze whipped through the room -- a thin one, barely enough to rustle the curtains and chill Puck's face for a moment. He laughed again.

"Come on, man, one more question. She likes the house, okay? She won't come home with you. You let Rachel decorate. He lets Rachel dress him too, okay? Look at him. You don't want to be there."

The small wind was gone as quickly as it came. Reluctantly, Finn returned his fingertips to the planchette, screwing up his face like he expected it to bite him. Instead, it waited.

"What's your name, babe?" Puck asked.

 _Calvin_ , the ghost replied.

*

After that startling revelation, Finn grew even redder in the face and insisted on ending the seance, dragging the planchette over to the little "goodbye" in the corner and practically throwing it back in the box. Maybe Puck wasn't being very helpful, but he thought maybe Finn would feel better if he admitted how damn funny it was. Or maybe not.

Of course, it didn't seem quite as funny after Finn left, when Puck paused, half-stripped to shower, and wondered if the ghost watched him when he did. That made it creepy. He shut his eyes and listened hard, but heard nothing unusual. Perhaps Calvin had worn himself out hitting on Finn.

He mumbled a prayer for safety's sake, and didn't feel any strange breezes or hear any weird noises afterward, even when he sat around shirtless for a while and finished his beer. He had a name to go on, now, in any case. Maybe he could figure out why the ghost was sticking around if he looked in the town records. He didn't think there were a lot of drownings in the river. Maybe they never found the body?

Whatever he decided, Finn probably wasn't going to help him. He'd come up with some sort of game plan tomorrow. He dreamed, oddly, of glitter again, pink across the cheekbone and up toward the eye, and leather, of fur -- it was like seeing a person, but only in close-up glimpses.

"Not interested," he mumbled when he woke up, and turned over.

"Oh, as if," someone said, their voice quiet and not entirely clear, although the words were distinguishable.

Puck sat up fast in his bed and glanced around. He wasn't surprised to find the room empty except for himself.

"Shut the hell up, Calvin," he growled. It was great that he had a name now, made it much easier to figure this stuff out, but he wasn't sure it had been a good idea to use the Ouija board. Maybe Finn had been right about letting something else into the house. Or it had made Calvin stronger.

For the first time since a brief stint in juvie during high school, he didn't sleep well for the rest of the night.

*

In the morning, of course, everything looked different. The sun was bright, the events of last night practically laughable. What was a ghost going to do to him, seriously? Calvin was already dead. The worst he could be was annoying. And Puck wouldn't put up with that shit. Any more trouble and he was going to find that exorcist, even if he had to call his mom a day earlier in the week than he usually did and ask for her help.

He was humming when he left the house, although he had to come back and google the library to figure out where it was. That sorted, he was on his way.

The librarian directed him to city hall, and this was beginning to feel like a wild Brittany chase or something (he still remembered the adventure that he'd had with Santana the one time they lost Brittany in Wal-Mart, which had ended with lifelong bans for all three of them). But he stuck with it anyway. He looked up the history of his house back as far as the records went, which really wasn't that far. If Calvin had lived there, it had been in the past sixty years.

The problem was that there _wasn't_ anyone named Calvin in the records. Or Kalvin, or Cal, or even someone with Calvin as a last name. The house was originally built by a man named Burt Hummel in the early 1950's, and since then it had passed through a variety of other owners before his grandma had purchased it in the late 90's. Maybe Calvin had been one of their kids? Puck scribbled down names and looked up other ones. By the time that the afternoon was over, the grandmotherly lady at the desk had checked out his ass four times (of course he counted), he'd learned more than he ever wanted to know about the history of anything, and he'd had three different sneezing fits from the dust. Enough. He went home.

"You are a pain in the ass," he said aloud as he threw his jacket in the closet. Nothing reacted. The washer was silent and the television submitted meekly to his button-pressing.

In fact, his evening was totally normal. He watched the game, and when the TV behaved the entire time, he got his guitar out to test that. No reaction. He could do whatever he wanted, finally. In his own house, so it was about time.

It took him exactly two hours to get bored.

It was weird. Puck wasn't the kind of pussy guy who got lonely or anything, but there was something really familiar and kind of nice about the feel of a house that wasn't empty. He'd gone from living with his mom and sister to living with Finn through college, and he hadn't had much time living by himself in their crappy little apartment, which had walls thin enough that you never felt alone, before his Nana dropped dead and he inherited her real estate. Now here he was, only person in a huge old house, and for the first time, he was really realizing it. But the idea of missing Calvin was stupid and ridiculous. The bastard was a liar, anyway. He had bad taste and he was Capital-G Gay, as Brittany used to say. The type of kid Puck would have been happy to slam into lockers and throw into dumpsters, in other words.

Maybe Puck would get a dog. The will just said he had to live here, not that he had to live alone or anything. As long as the place was still standing, and he was in it, it would be his. Maybe he'd even name the dog Calvin. Wouldn't that be hilarious? Then he'd actually have something visible to shout at when weird stuff happened.

When his phone rang suddenly, he very definitely did not jump, though he might have started just a little. The caller ID said Finn and Puck answered immediately. Like he was going to give up an opportunity to talk to his favorite gho-mosexual (ghost-homosexual, duh). He opened his mouth to share the hilarious thought but shut it quickly when he heard _Rachel_.

It wasn't that Puck entirely hated Rachel. She was hot when she wasn't talking, and Puck had briefly dated her in high school. She dressed like a little girl, but the knee socks were kinda sexy in a weird way, and she was Jewish, which had garnered him major points with his mom. She wanted actual commitment, though, and no sleeping around, even though she wasn't putting out at all, and how was that fair? Plus, that had been in the middle of his thing for Quinn, before he realized that bitchy cheerleaders would always be bitches. So he and Rachel hadn't worked out, but they were sort of friends. She yelled at him for being insensitive and he admired her ass when she bent over, but not whenever Finn would notice, because he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. It was the most friendly he'd ever been with a girl he'd never actually screwed, anyway, which had to count for something.

But _damn_ , that girl could talk. She gave him this big long lecture about how Ouija boards were disrespectful or something, and how Finn kept babbling about a stupid prank that he, Noah, had certainly perpetrated.

"It wasn't a prank, okay," he said, managing to elbow into the conversation. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but I have a ghost. And it's gay for your husband." He snickered.

"There's nothing wrong with being gay, Noah. And I'm sure your ghost is just lonely." She paused. "Assuming he exists. Have you even tried to look up the name he supposedly gave?"

"Did today," Puck answered. "He's a liar or something. No one named Calvin ever lived here."

"Well, that settles it," Rachel said firmly. "If he's lying, he must be a malicious spirit. I went online and found you the name of a Jewish exorcist."

So there were Jewish exorcists. That was convenient. Puck took down the information she gave him and promised to call the rabbi the next day. He also promised not to torment Finn too much about the ghost, but he at least intended to keep the first promise.

After Rachel finished yapping and managed to say something that sounded sincere about her sadness at the loss of his grandmother, Puck hung up the phone and tried to figure out what to do for the rest of the evening. Finally, he settled for flipping channels and half-watching about four different shows at once.

He was watching an infomercial for something called the Easy Chop and actually considering taking down the number (you could chop _anything_ with it!) when he looked at the clock on the DVD player and realized that it was really late. He normally went to bed around one on the days he didn't have to work -- not because he had an official bedtime or anything, just because he was usually tired by that point. Now it was almost three. Exorcists probably liked to get started bright and early, so he really should go to bed and call the guy in the morning.

Puck thumped up the stairs, moving more loudly than necessary, and he was almost at the top when he realized why. He didn't want to go to sleep. He didn't want to dream Calvin's creepy dreams. But Calvin still talked to him when he was half-asleep, so there wasn't an alternative solution.

Exorcist, definitely.

"I don't want any stupid dreams tonight," he said out loud, standing in his bedroom doorway. "I don't care about you. Fuck off."

He was dozing on the edge of sleep when someone said, right in his ear, "I'm not going anywhere."

"Screw you, Calvin," he said, jolted back to awareness. The room was cold and dark. He shifted around and put the blankets over his head -- just because of the cold, of course. He wasn't scared or anything.

"My house now. Not yours," he announced from his blanket-pile.

Calvin giggled, the sound eerie in the dark room. It took way too long for Puck to fall asleep.

*

The next day, he called the exorcist and explained the situation, and the rabbi agreed to come out. As soon as he showed the place to the old man, Puck beat it. He was a good Jew when he remembered to be. He ate kosher and didn't work on the Sabbath (though he didn't go to Temple either; God rested, so why shouldn't he?). Mostly he just wanted to leave for a while and come back to have his problems solved. That would be perfect.

So he left the old guy wandering around and muttering and setting up candles and stuff, and went to his mom's, because (1) free food and (2) she'd told him about a million times that he had to visit a lot. And he got to threaten his little sister's new boyfriend, so that was a bonus. Kid was practically shaking in his boots by the time Puck got tired of his mom harping on about him finding a girlfriend so she could have grandbabies. He was trying to avoid the question as much as he could. Maybe if he was lucky she'd go senile and stop asking. He could hope.

When he came back to the house, it smelled promisingly weird, and the rabbi had packed up and left. He walked through the house, noting the empty feeling, and then he sat down and had a beer.

"Totally worth the fifty bucks," he said -- to himself this time, he was certain.

That was about the time he heard the crash.

*

He took the stairs two at a time, having grabbed the fireplace poker to use as a weapon. All of his knives were still packed away in a box somewhere (in the attic, he thought; Rachel had "helpfully" labeled it POCKETKNIVES & SWORDS -- DO NOT DROP). He wasn't sure what had made that noise, but it sounded like something big. Whatever. He'd beat up a bear if he had to. A man had to protect his property.

He wasn't sure where the sound had come from, exactly, so he paused at the top of the stairs to listen. The second floor was eerily silent. Fine, he'd play that game. Holding the poker up next to his shoulder like a baseball bat, ready to swing, he kicked the door of the room closest to the door. It swung open obediently to reveal his grandma's sewing room, dusty and dark. Nothing there. He even went in and checked.

He stepped back into the hallway and listened again, but heard nothing. The next door was the bathroom, which was also empty. He even smacked the shower curtain a few times before opening it, to make sure there wasn't anyone hiding behind it.

He made his way through the rooms, glancing out into the hallway frequently just in case the person tried to sneak downstairs. No way, not on Puck's watch.

His grandma's old bedroom was also empty and dark. The last room remaining was his own. Not the smartest place for an invader to choose. He was prepared to really mess them up if they'd taken any of his stuff. He crept on the room, pressing his ear to the door quietly like he'd seen people do in the movies. He heard nothing, and so he put his hand carefully on the knob.

He rushed in quickly, providing the intruder with no warning, waving the poker around and looking for movement. He wasn't watching his feet at all and so when he banged his shins on the bureau, he swore angrily. What was this, a distraction tactic? The person had knocked over his dresser so they had time to get away? What a lame idea. The dresser was huge and old and heavy. He wasn't even sure he could get it back upright on his own. And his clothes were scattered all over the place, as if they were victim to a local tornado or some bitch who'd gotten pissed that he was cheating on her.

The thing was, he soon discovered, jabbing the poker under the bed and into the closet, heart pounding in his throat -- the thing was, there really wasn't anyone in here. When he went back and checked the rest of the house, there was no other sign of disturbance. And he nearly pulled something getting the heavy dresser upright again.

He didn't want to think it. But either he had an amazing disappearing burglar who didn't bother to actually _take_ anything, or...

Or Calvin hadn't gone anywhere.

For some reason, he thought the second explanation made the most sense. The ghost wasn't fond of his taste in music, or tv -- he wouldn't be surprised if Calvin didn't like Puck's clothes either. Well, he'd just have to suffer.

Puck wasn't going anywhere either.

*

Puck dreamed of a man on a deserted stage. He was skinny and tall, but the platform boots, shiny white vinyl, lifted him even higher above his imaginary audience, the one that wouldn't be here for another few hours. But they would be here eventually, and Puck recognized the impatience and anticipation that you felt before a big game, when you were out on the field in practice and just waiting for the stands to fill later, for the people who would be cheering for you, the thousands of them that you imagined.

This man was in full "dress," as he would have said it. There were still hours to go before his show, but he'd slicked up his hair and done his makeup, face shining and eyes heavily lined in purple. The impression Puck had was basically of the gayest man he'd ever seen, but there was also something else...

Defiance. The man was angry, and he wasn't backing down. He liked to dress this way, and it was also his statement. He wasn't going to change who he was to please somebody. It didn't matter how many death threats he received; it didn't matter how many times the record company suggested that he tone it down; it didn't even matter when he showed up in the tabloids with his face too close to another man's. He was who he was, and that was in his music and in his stance, feet planted wide and hands on his hips.

Puck thought fleetingly about his mohawk, and about all the people who told him he'd have to let it grow out to get a respectable job, and how he'd refused. He thought about all the girls who told him they wouldn't do him anymore unless they could be exclusive, and how he hadn't let himself be whipped, because he was Noah Puckerman and he wasn't backing down. It was kinda -- it was really weird to think that this frilly stranger had the same strength as he did, only about totally different things. People didn't mess with Puck. He was strong and gave out an air of awesomeness. But people probably messed with this guy all the time, and he still didn't let them win.

Puck was actually impressed.

A door slammed and the man on stage turned, thrown off guard by the intrusion. There were five huge guys coming up the aisle toward the stage, and they had murder in their eyes. Puck recoiled before he could stop himself. They reminded him of some of the guys he'd met in juvie, the guys who'd be just as happy to shiv you as they would be to say hello. There was a difference between not taking anyone's shit and the people who would turn around and rub your face in it just because they'd find it funny.

"We were looking for you," the leading guy said, sneering. The performer sniffed -- Calvin sniffed. This had to be Calvin, Puck's dream-logic said. It was the only thing that made sense.

"I don't do autographs until after the show," Calvin answered, with a flutter of his begloved hand. "You're a little early, boys. I suppose I could make exceptions for your enthusiasm."

"We don't want your fag autograph," one of the men said. They reached the pit in front of the stage and hauled themselves up without hesitation. Calvin took a step backward; he glanced around just a little, eyes rolling in his sockets. He was trying to hide his panic, and probably trying to remember if there was anyone else here yet. Puck had seen that look a thousand times on the faces of the kids he'd thrown into dumpsters in high school. It was really confusing seeing it from their side, and it made him a little sick to his stomach.

"My manager knows I'm here," he said finally. The men didn't pause. One spat at Calvin's feet. Calvin stepped back, wrinkling his nose at the implied insult.

"Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be able to find you later," the leader said.

The men all laughed loudly at that, like it was the funniest joke they'd ever heard. Calvin took another step back, and then another, but one of the men grabbed his left arm above the elbow, and another grabbed his right. All of the color drained out of Calvin's face as they began to drag him off the stage. He stumbled and refused to walk, but they just kept pulling.

"Stop! I will call the police! I'll scream when we get outside!" Calvin's voice was shrill. The men stopped, but didn't loosen their grips. Instead, the leader reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. He held it up in front of Calvin's face, just inches from his nose.

"If you scream, I'll cut your throat. Simple as that. You think that I'll get in trouble for killing a queer? They'll probably give me a medal."

The other men laughed again dutifully. Calvin stared at the knife. He seemed conflicted. Puck was shaking his head. This was bad news. If he thought he could be seen here, or heard, he would be on the phone to the police in an instant. But this -- this had already happened. It couldn't be changed.

Puck wanted to wake up. He really, really did. There was a difference between giving someone a hard time, and actually wanting to hurt them badly. Puck had never intentionally crossed the line. He'd hurt people's feelings before, damaged their clothes, pushed them around -- he'd done a lot of stuff like that in high school, when it felt like the most important thing in the world to make sure that the other kids knew their places (below him). But he'd never, never thought about doing something that could end up in the hospital.

Or in the morgue.

"I have a show at six," Calvin said finally, lifting his nose snootily. "We have to be back by then."

"We'll take a very short walk," the leader promised, pulling the knife back into his pocket. "A very quiet one."

Calvin went with them, but he wasn't happy about it. Puck tried to follow, but this was one of those dreams where moving was as hard as if you were standing in molasses or something. All he could do was watch them leave, Calvin's posture as straight as if this were staged. Even though he was scared out of his wits, he still gave out a snippy air.

He watched them go: the men shuffled, hands hard on Calvin's upper arms, and Calvin strode. The door slammed behind them with a thick finality. Puck stood in the middle of the stage. The spotlights shone down on him, hot and bright, making him sweat. They were blinding, almost, shining in his eyes --

*

They shone just like the sun. Puck had intended to just sit down on his bed for a moment after he'd thrown all of his clothes back in the wardrobe. He was going to sit down, and then he was going to have a talk with Calvin about not messing with his stuff. And even if it involved shouting into empty air, he didn't care. He was tired of being screwed with. He was done.

But he'd fallen asleep somehow, leaning back against the headboard, and now he had an annoying crick in his neck and a bad taste in his mouth. He was also more confused than before.

Why had Calvin insisted that he'd drowned? Puck was pretty sure that those guys had had a part in his death instead. Otherwise, why show him this stuff? Why was he hanging around this house when he hadn't really lived here? Why was he such a picky bastard? And why Puck? He should know that Puck was just going to try to get rid of him, not help him.

Puck groaned and got out of the bed. His clothes were still stuffed in the dresser, the poker still on his bedside table where he'd tossed it when it became clear that there wasn't anyone he needed to attack. He went downstairs and was somehow unsurprised by the fact that his beer can hadn't stayed where he left it. It was in the sink, empty, the little tabhole black and mocking.

"Yeah, maybe I would have thrown it away if you hadn't been molesting me in my sleep," he muttered.

Whatever. Puck spend the day out of the house, away from the dust and the ghost and the chill he'd been struggling to shake since he'd woken. His mind kept going back to that look on Calvin's face, that frightened realization that he might not be back for his show. That thought would unsettle anybody, and it made Puck surly and quick-tempered. He shouted at the girl in Starbucks instead of trying to flirt with her, and she had great tits. It was ridiculous.

He went to the movies after he got bored of lurking in Starbucks. Hyped up on cappucino, he watched an action movie with a decent number of explosions but shitty CGI. It was like a James Bond rip-off, in his opinion, but it passed time, and it wasn't until he came out of the theater and saw the sky darkening that he realized that passing time was exactly what he was doing.

He was going to figure out what Calvin wanted. He was going to do it tonight. He couldn't stand a year of this shit. He'd probably go crazy. And maybe that's what Calvin wanted, but he wasn't going to stand for it.

He went by the kosher deli for dinner meat, and then he came back and got online to research again. He was looking for methods of talking to ghosts that didn't involve more than one person. Rachel had called him while he was in the movie, probably to see if the exorcism had worked, but he wasn't in the mood for her harping and she probably wouldn't lend him Finn again either. Anyway, Finn was a pussy. He probably wouldn't agree to help anymore.

Flipping aimlessly around the internet, he found an article about automatic writing. That seemed straightforward enough. You took paper, you took a pencil, and then you shut your eyes and let the ghost write through you. People had channeled all sorts of dead people that way, and then you had the paper as proof, where it wasn't your handwriting or the ghost told you something you couldn't have known on your own. A lot of it had been discredited, but there were enough results that Puck decided it was worth a try.

He dug around in the cabinets and found the candles that his grandma kept in case of power outages. The internet suggested using candles as a way of knowing whether the spirit was around: they would blow the flame around. That was kinda hard to do with his camping lantern. Not that Calvin was incapable of pushing stuff over, but that wasn't really the point this time.

He put down the candles on coasters, vaguely thinking that his mom would have a cow if he wrecked his grandmother's old kitchen table, and then he poked around again until he found a half-used notebook. The other half had been mostly torn out or used as scratch paper -- his nana's spidery handwriting made note of recipe changes or important dates.

Pencil, paper, candles. Puck was set. He lit the candles with the lighter he always carried around (even though he didn't smoke, fire was often useful). Then he turned the lights off and sat down, taking a deep breath and picking up the old Bic pen.

He scribbled a few circles to get the ink flowing, and then he wrote "Puckasaurus Rex" because Calvin should have an idea who he was messing with. He set the pen on the page again, letting it move in lazy circles, waiting for "direction," as the article writer had suggested.

"Who are you, really?" he asked the empty room. There was nothing at first, and then the candles flickered, just a little. Hurriedly, Puck shut his eyes and continued to scribble. After a long breathless moment, his fingers quit making circles. His arm was almost numb -- not with a pins and needles feeling, but numb. He shouldn't be able to hold a pen, but the pen was moving. His fingers managed a few letters or symbols or something, and then stopped. After a moment, the pen tapped on the paper impatiently.

Okay. Okay. Next question. In a deep part of his mind, he had to admit he hadn't thought it would be so easy to get this going. It was kinda creepy, and somehow felt almost weirder than the dreams. This was possession while he was still _awake_. Freaky.

"Did you really live here? Why didn't the exorcism work?"

His hand scribbled busily as he asked more questions. It was only by clenching his empty fist that he managed to resist opening his eyes and watching it happen. He didn't want to scare Calvin off until they were done. This was going to be the only time he was going to sit down and be some ghost's secretary.

"How did you really die?" he asked. "Why are you bothering me now? Did you scare Nana to death?" (He was pretty sure she'd died of cancer, his mom had mentioned it, but he might as well cover all the bases.)

"How can I get you to go away?" he asked finally.

His hand paused. He was drawing circles again, he could tell, and that almost made him give up. He was beginning to get the feeling back in his hand. It would be just like Calvin to not tell him the most important thing. But before his anger could get any stronger, his hand wrote one last thing before he dropped the pen. Puck pushed his chair back from the table immediately and opened his eyes.

The candles flickered again, and then they all went out.

*

It was a nice party trick, maybe, but it took more than that to make El Puckerone scream. Maybe Finn or Rachel would have. Definitely Brittany. Puck just almost bit his tongue instead. He got up, grabbing the paper as he did, and went instead into the living room and flipped on the lights there. He sat down on the couch and held the page up before his face. What he saw honestly amazed him.

It wasn't his handwriting, not at all. Puck wrote in small caps, sloppily, pressing the pen too hard into the page. He liked being able to lift the paper and see an imprint on the one below it, like in detective movies. He had signed the paper like that.

The handwriting below it, the ghost handwriting, was messy, scrunched-up cursive. Puck actually looked at his own hand and contemplated writing it. He'd brought the pen with him as well -- experimentally he flipped the paper over and tried to mimic it. He could, sort of, but you could tell that it wasn't what he was used to, at all. They weren't the same.

More important, however, were the words that Calvin had chosen to share. He should have written down the questions, maybe, but he remembered them.

"Who are you, really?" _Calvin Cheerio._

(That sounded like a gay porn star to Puck. He guessed that a gay rock star wasn't too far off, although no way it was the guy's real name.)

"Did you really live here?" _Yes -- long time ago._

"Why didn't the exorcism work?" _Not Jewish._

Puck barked laughter and disbelief at that one.

"How did you really die?" _Drowned._

Well, that was what he'd said before too. At least he was keeping his story straight.

"Why are you bothering me now?" _You're here._

The next line was scribbled empathically in all caps: _OF COURSE NOT._ It took Puck a moment to remember that he'd asked if Calvin had offed his grandma. He decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment.

"How can I get you to go away?" Here was where Calvin had hesitated. He'd doodled in a stupid-looking flower, for God's sake, and then in a script even worse than before, he'd scribbled, _Say it wasn't suicide._

*

Puck stared at the paper for a long moment. Calvin didn't come to disturb him. He read it again and tried to figure out what to do. Who was he supposed to tell? Who would believe him? People would just say he was crazy, or stick the story in the tabloids at best.

But since Calvin had finally given him a last name to go on, finally he elected to go upstairs and turn on his computer. If the guy had been a singer, maybe he was famous enough to come up in a search. Puck hoped so; he was tired of doing all this run-around research. You'd think Calvin would _want_ to make it easy on him, so that maybe Puck could actually accomplish what he wanted.

Luckily, he'd been notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Puck clicked the link and waited impatiently for the site to load. There it was, in plain black and white.

 _Calvin Cheerio (born Kurt Richard Hummel[1], September 9, 1951 -- May 3, 1975) was an American rock musician who achieved mild success in the early 1970s. He was one of the first American musicians linked with the glam rock movement in the U.K. and claimed David Bowie as a major influence on his performances[2]..._

Puck blinked. He looked around and then remembered that he'd shoved his notes into his wallet. He pulled it out and rescued the mangled strips of paper that he'd scribbled on in the library. A man named Burt Hummel had built the house. That was the first name he'd found. Hummel. It matched.

He continued to skim the article, skipping most of the stuff about Calvin's early life and first musical successes. He was looking for one thing, and near the bottom, he found it.

 _Cheerio played a small tour across America in the spring of 1975 and disappeared right before his final show in Louisville, Kentucky. His body washed up two weeks later, a few miles downstream in the Ohio River.[20] It was only a short walk to the river from the bar where he was going to perform, and as the river had been unusually tame for late April, it seemed unlikely that he'd drowned by accident. The medical examiner declared it suicide. Cheerio's band backed up the idea; they described Cheerio as "standoffish at best" and often prone to "sulking, sometimes for days at a time."[21]_

"They pushed him in," Puck whispered, shaking his head. "They actually did it." He stared at the webpage, but its dry information did not change. He scrolled up to the top of the screen and clicked on the Edit button, but then he stopped. What could he say? Wikipedia was a bitch about citing sources; he couldn't just make one up. They'd just revert the article to how it had been before. He'd tampered with articles enough times before to know that it wouldn't even last a day. And an interview with a ghost, even if he scanned in the paper all nicely, was not going to hold up.

There was a brush of wind, just a tiny one, like fingers cold on his bicep, and Puck felt a sudden impatience that was only half his. He threw up his hands.

"It's not that easy, gayboy. I don't know what you want me to expect to do. I'm not magic. I can't just call a press conference and declare you murdered. Cops want proof. And that's assuming they care about a murder 30 years old. Does anyone even remember when you were alive?"

There was no answer, just heavy silence.

Puck shook his head and went to bed. He had no dreams.

*

They had something like a temporary truce after that -- definitely temporary. Puck watched sports and Calvin -- Kurt? It _was_ his real name, but apparently not the one he preferred, so Puck decided to stick with Calvin -- didn't mess with the cable except during the commercials. He didn't have any weird dreams, or at least, Calvin didn't walk through them very much. Calvin left his wardrobe alone, and didn't create any unusual cold winds. Puck really thought he could get used to this. He went back to work since his vacation was up, and he just left the TV on when he went so Calvin could watch his lady talk shows or whatever. He took out the trash pretty regularly after Calvin knocked it over a couple times, and he occasionally threw in some classic rock when he messed around on his guitar. He didn't know any gay rock like Calvin had sang, but the Beatles were pretty awesome, and they apparently agreed on that one.

It was kind of like having a roommate whom you never saw, like it had been right before Finn got married. Finn would blow through absentmindedly to pay the bills and sleep in his bed once in a while, but he was with Rachel most of the time, slave to her wedding planning. It had the same feel to Puck, except that he didn't ever have to hear Rachel giggling down the hall, or wait for the bathroom. It was amazing what the human mind could adjust to.

He came home late one Friday night from the bars. He'd almost brought a girl with him, but in the end she'd decided to drunkenly hook up with her girlfriend, and since Puck appreciated the sight, he hadn't complained too much. He'd taken pictures on his phone instead. So he was pretty happy when he stumbled in, warm and half-drunk and whistling, and it smacked him like a punch in the gut when he saw someone standing in front of him in the hallway.

It wasn't a dark shadow like his grandma's executor had said, a time that felt like years ago. It was a full manifestation, Calvin glowing in the light from the hall. He was dim and the shadows didn't fall right around him -- they fell through him instead, like he'd barely managed to fade in. Puck jumped backward, surprised, tangling himself in the massive coatrack his grandma had left, twisting his ankle painfully and smacking a warm line of pain into his spine. Calvin's eyes widened; he turned and opened his mouth, but he didn't say anything at first.

He looked just like he had in Puck's dream, down to the ridiculous platform boots. His eyes were sharp and blue, his face oddly young under the makeup. He'd died when he was Puck's age, but he looked like he wasn't even old enough to get into bars.

It was a strange thing to think about when there was a _ghost_ standing in front of him, but he'd read this stupid story in English class once when he couldn't get out of it, about a guy who realized he was going to be in a car accident and still dived to protect his coffee cup, like it was the most important thing in the world. The teacher had said it was about a reaction to trauma. People focused on dumb things, things that didn't really matter, so they didn't have to think about the bigger problems.

So that was probably why he watched the way that Calvin reached up and brushed his bangs back with a sort of morbid fascination.

"Tell my dad," he said. His voice wasn't as strong as it had been when he'd spoken into Puck's half-asleep ear. Puck had to lean forward to hear it, untangling himself from the stupid coatrack and straining his ears.

"He thinks I -- " Calvin paused, pursing his lips. There was so much hurt in his eyes: years of it. "Tell him I didn't."

"How's he going to believe me?"

Calvin's form wavered. For a moment, the color faded from him, dimming him into a shadow person. He seemed to fight himself back into existence, squeezing his fists.

"Ask him what I wanted for my third birthday," he said, just barely smiling. "No one knows that but me and him."

He went out like a candle, and the electric lights faded for a moment, like there was an impending brownout. Puck swore under his breath, but they came back brightly.

"What did you want?" he asked.

Calvin's voice was a whisper in his ear. Puck bent over, laughing until he thought he was going to puke, and that's when the lights went out again.

"I'll do it, fine," he said. There was no answer from the dark, but the electric worked in the morning.

*

Someone was knocking on the door, and by the time Burt Hummel managed to make it to the front hallway, there had been three more knocks. It was probably another vacuum cleaner salesman or religious nut, he figured. He didn't have a lot of visitors since his second wife had died two years before. He peered through the peephole and took in the stranger standing on his doorstep. It was a man, or maybe a tall kid, with a punk haircut but a nice shirt on. He considered the kid. He was pretty sure that neither the Mormons nor the Hoover people would appreciate a haircut like that, but he really didn't know, then, what the kid wanted. Curiosity won; he answered the door, but kept a wary eye on the boy. He wasn't as young as he used to be. If the punk wanted to rob him, he'd probably have no trouble. But who wore a white buttonfront shirt to rob an old man?

"What do you want?" he asked.

The kid met his eyes and gave him this weird look of recognition. Now Burt was fumbling in his memory for the possibility of them being related. Or maybe he was someone on Carole's side? He'd gone to the family reunions, of course, but the people were a blur of names and occupations. He hadn't seen any of them in a long time except for her grandson, Finn, who came by once in a while to check in on him. Good kid, Finn.

Burt was jerked from his thoughts by the kid, who coughed and said, "I'm doing this history thing for, uh, school. History of my house. Library said that you built it -- the one on Maple. You know what I'm talking about?"

Burt blinked in surprise. He gestured gruffly for the kid to come in, turning around and shuffling back into the living room, trying to collect his thoughts. Of course he remembered that house. He'd built it for Elizabeth and Kurt. There were hundreds of happy memories there -- and then there were the bad ones, the ones that had finally provoked him into moving. That was the house his first wife had died in, and the house his son had never come back to. That was the house that had seen twenty great Christmases and hundreds of scraped knees and burnt dinners. He'd been so proud of it at the time.

He hadn't thought about the house in years. The people had been more important than their backdrop: a house was just a place to _live_ , after all. The living was the big deal.

The kid settled himself uneasily on Burt's couch. Burt watched him as he sank into his favorite armchair. The boy was more bothered by this project that he really had any right to be. Burt hadn't chased him off, had he? He was willing to talk a little. The kid could try for his A, if that was actually what he was after. His nerves suggested it might be otherwise.

"Built the house in the early 50s," Burt said after a long moment. "Sold it in 75. You could get that information from the records, though. So what exactly do you need from me?"

*

Puck still wasn't sure how he was going to do this. He'd been thrown off by the way that Calvin had his dad's eyes, and then there were other considerations. Was there any nice way to come out with, "I've been speaking to your dead son"? This guy was pretty old, but he still looked like he had an arm on him. And if he kicked Puck out before he delivered his message, who knew how long Calvin would stick around and irritate him?

"Your son was a rock star, wasn't he?" he asked finally. Not much of a segue, but it was a start. The old man blinked in surprise.

"You did your research, huh?" He laughed, which turned into a cough. "I guess everyone can find stuff out now that the computers are so big. Yeah, that's him. Calvin Cheerio, born Kurt Hummel. Dunno why the name I gave him wasn't good enough, but when I heard what his bandmates were called, I was kinda thankful it wasn't something weirder."

"He grew up in that house, right?" Puck pressed a little. Burt nodded. He spoke slowly, as if lost in thought.

"I built the house when I found out Kurt's mom was pregnant. Had a little money put away from my time in the service, and my dad hired me at his car shop. Elizabeth died when Kurt was 8, but he lived there until he graduated high school and went off to seek his fortune. I tried to get him to do college, but he was such a headstrong kid." Burt laughed again, but this time it was short and had little humor in it. He looked, for a moment, terribly sad. Puck bit his lip so that he didn't just blurt it out.

When Burt spoke again, it was like he was trying to distance himself from the subject a little bit, shifting the focus of the conversation.

"Maybe it's rude of me, but you don't seem like the type who would have liked my son's music. Not enough like the rest of rock and roll."

He peered at Puck again with his old but sharp blue eyes. Puck wondered how old he was if he'd built the house in the early 50s. If he'd been better at math, he would have figured it out. Old guy looked like he could croak any minute. Puck sure hoped he wouldn't. That was another reason to break this gently.

"Nah, I'm more into cool music. Modern stuff," he admitted. "I found the information online."

He looked at his hands, and then shut his eyes for a brief moment. In his head, he saw that frightened look in Calvin's eyes.

"Do you have a heart problem or anything?" he found himself asking, glancing back at the old man. Burt seemed disturbed by the question.

"What does it matter?" He tensed in his chair, gripping the arms.

"I have something really weird to tell you about Cal -- about Kurt. I got kicked out of Scouts when I was eight so I can't really help if you have a heart attack or whatever."

Burt leaned back in the chair. He scowled a little.

"I know my son was gay," he said. "He told me. He was still my son and I don't care what you have to say about that."

"Knew it!" Puck said before could stop himself. But then he lifted his hands placatingly, stopping Burt from getting up. "But no, this is something else. You're probably not going to believe me. But he won't leave me alone until I tell you, and," he rolled his eyes, "he's not the easiest guy to live with."

"He who?" Burt asked. "Who are you talking about?"

Puck took a deep breath. "For his third birthday, all Kurt wanted was a pair of sensible heels."

(It wasn't as hard as he'd expected to not break into laughter again. The air was too tense for that.)

Burt blanched. Several emotions crossed his face, but he settled finally on suspicious concern. He crossed his arms across his chest.

"What's this all about?" he asked, and this time, Puck told him the whole story.

*

"You say my son's been rattling around in that house for years? Why would he do that?"

Burt had his fists clenched on his knees. He still wore that look of suspicion, but he hadn't had a heart attack, and he hadn't stopped Puck except to ask questions. He made Puck describe the dream attack down to the very last detail he could think of, until his head hurt.

"He wants people to know the truth, I guess," Puck said. He wondered if he could ask for some coffee. Would that be overstaying his welcome? He hadn't promised to make the old man believe his story, but since he was here, he figured he'd better try. If he didn't at least try, Kurt would get pissy. And yeah, this was a big deal and all, but he still wanted to watch "Jersey Shore" tonight.

Burt shook his head. "Kid never cared about what other people thought. Not too much." There was a note of pride in it.

"You didn't..." Puck hesitated, and then continued. "You didn't kick him out or anything, did you? Maybe he wants to make up to you?"

"Of course not," Burt answered immediately.

Puck shrugged. "Well, you're his dad. Maybe he just didn't want you to think he gave up."

Burt twisted his fingers in his lap.

"I didn't believe it," he said softly. "My son was a lot of things, but he was no quitter. He was stubborn as a mule. He wouldn't have thrown himself in the river over some boy."

Puck squirmed on the couch. This really was getting too emotional for him. And yeah, maybe it would have been nice to have a dad that cared that much about him. Cared enough to stick around. But he hadn't, so this felt weird. It was like going to a house where someone had died yesterday, not so long ago that he hadn't even been born yet.

"Do you know what happened to those men?" Burt asked, expression darkening. Puck had to shake his head.

"I don't think Kurt knew them," he said. "He didn't tell me any names."

Burt growled, frustrated. "They don't deserve to get away with it."

Puck looked away. "They don't. But I can't prove any of this, you know. And that was years ago. None of this would work in court unless I was trying to claim insanity for some reason."

Burt grunted. "You're right," he said, his tone reluctant. "I just wish... I could never protect him, you know. I tried to tell him he should do his best to fit in, but he never wanted to."

Puck scratched the back of his head, still feeling a little embarrassed by the mess of emotion that Kurt had dumped him into.

"He was a stubborn bastard," Puck said finally. Sympathy was not his strong suit.

"Had to be, if he's stuck around that long." And then suddenly Burt was standing. He'd gotten up so quickly that Puck looked up at him, concerned -- was the man going to have a spasm? But no. He just seemed to suddenly have the energy of a younger man. He hardly hesitated as he crossed the room and threw open the closet door.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to see him," Burt said, voice muffled by the coats he was digging through.

"Hold on," Puck said, getting up too, alarmed. "Chill out. I don't think it works that way."

He hadn't realized that until he said it, but it made sense now. It was a feeling like something had gone. He knew, then, that when he came home, it would be to a truly empty place. Kurt was gone.

"Why not?"

The old man was shruggling to put on a windbreaker that hadn't fit him for probably ten years. He put his arm through the sleeve and paused to look at Puck. Puck looked away.

"He's gone. He went away. I told you what he wanted me to tell you, so now he's... gone off to gay heaven or whatever. Christian heaven. All I know is that he's not Jewish."

"How can you be sure?" Burt demanded. Puck shrugged.

"I just know. I'm sorry. Believe me, I'd rather he haunted you all the time. You'd have appreciated it more."

Burt sighed. He looked down at the coat he was half-wearing, and then slowly took it off again.

"If he's still there when you get home, you have to call me," he said firmly.

Puck nodded. "Believe me, I will. That way he knows I told you."

Burt hung his coat back up and turned back to Puck, shaking his head a little.

"This is the craziest idea I've ever heard, you know," he said. "I've never -- I went to church when the boy was young, I believe there's something else after we die, but... ghosts? But no one else alive knows what you told me about his birthday." He sighed. "I guess I have to believe you."

The conversation didn't last long after that. Puck had told Burt everything he knew. Finally, with an awkward, "Take care of yourself," he left. He paved over the silence of the drive with some good old-fashioned AC/DC, and when he unlocked the door to his house, the door was creaky and the place was empty. It smelled like the eggs he'd made for breakfast, the plate still unscrubbed in the sink. The early afternoon sun was fighting through the windows and across the floors.

Puck walked through the place again, like he hadn't done during the day since he'd moved in. Everything was where he'd left it, in the comforting half-mess of a bachelor's home. His bed was unmade. Last night's clothes were on the floor near the hamper. Two empty cans of beer and an empty soda can were on the counter.

Most importantly, there was no ghost, so Puck settled in for a nice afternoon watching "The Fast and the Furious" on USA, because it had enough car crashes to never get old. He was suffering through a creepy commercial about having a happy period (as if, that just made all of his girlfriends even more pissy) when the phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out -- Finn.

"Sup, dude?" he asked. He'd filled Finn in on the whole mess not long ago, but Finn still refused to vist unless the ghost was gone.

"I have a ghost!" Finn yelled into the phone, making Puck scrunch up his face and pull the earpiece away. Because, really. He hadn't screamed the whole time he had one.

"Say what?"

Finn explained and asked for Puck's ghostbuster talents. Puck neglected to mention that he'd never actually busted any ghosts, just talked one into leaving his house. Whatever. He'd go over there and find out it was a mouse, anyway. In fact, he could hear Rachel in the background saying something about disappearing cheese.

But it would be nice to get out of this empty old place for a while and screw around with friends. He bet himself a beer that he could make Finn jump and crack his head on a doorframe at least once.

And if it were somehow real, so what? He had proven a talent in that direction. Noah Puckerman, ghost tamer. He could get a TV show for that shit.

He left the house light-hearted, letting the door slam heavily behind him, secure in the knowledge that it would be just the same when he came back.

Maybe he'd call up Quinn one of these days, actually. Not just mail her the child-support checks, but actually ask to see his daughter. You really only got one chance, after all. It wasn't like most people did the ghost thing. Made sense to live while you were still breathing.

If there was one thing that Puck was good at, it was that.


End file.
